


A Single Step

by Daring_Steel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, More to Follow - Freeform, Qui-Gon Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6705418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daring_Steel/pseuds/Daring_Steel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A single step, and the universe changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Single Step

Qui-Gon Jinn knelt in the space between laser walls and listened to the Force. In the room ahead of him the Sith paced, turbulent feral rage arcing around his soul like stellar prominences. In the space behind him and five walls away Obi-Wan Kenobi stood, brave and fearful, his Padawan’s soul burning bright and young and blue as his lightsaber. Three minutes behind him was the two of them fighting the Sith side-by-side, holding their own against a monster the galaxy had not seen for centuries. Three minutes ahead of him was the walls coming down and the Sith charging forward, the battle resuming on terms he could or could not dictate, and there the future splintered into possiblilty. Step forward and he might face the Sith alone; step back and he would join Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon Jinn sat in the space between the laser walls and listened to the Force tell him to step forward and die; Qui-Gon Jinn sat in the space between laser walls and listened to the Force tell him to step backwards and live; Qui-Gon Jinn sat in the space between laser walls and listened to the little voice in his head that said _you know, using laser walls for reactor containment (rather than, say, a big solid door) is really kind of silly_ and _do you think they have that tea we like in the afterlife, because I don’t think they do_ and _do you really think Obi-Wan's ready to step up and be Anakin's master if you die, because I don't_ and as always _remind me again why you’re listening to the Force instead of these self-preservation instincts evolution worked so hard to program into you?_  

Qui-Gon Jinn had been listening to the Force for as long as he had been a Jedi.  Qui-Gon Jinn had been listening to the little voice in his head for as long as he had been a person.  Qui-Gon Jinn had been a Jedi for as long as he had been a person and a person for as long as he had been a Jedi; he had been raised in the Temple and the time spans were the same.  The combined influences had led him into and out of a wide variety of very interesting situations.  

A week ago Qui-Gon Jinn was on Tatooine talking to an untrained nine-year-old slave with a stronger force presence than anyone he’d met who wasn’t a Jedi Master. Two days ago the boy had swept the rankings of a sport that humans weren't even supposed to be biologically capable of playing.  His future was clouded – Qui-Gon could see darkness and light in equal possibility.

Obi-Wan did not believe Anakin was the Chosen One of prophecy – or, if he did, he did so out of respect for his teacher rather than his own judgment. The Council were skeptical, at best – Yoda had likely seen several possible candidates in his time, and no organization survives for thousands of years without some dogmatization.  

Qui-Gon did not believe in prophecies and destiny, at least not the same way that much of the Order seemed to.  Even with the Force, there really had to be some hard limits on what you could do with and to causality, how thoroughly you could mix free will and determinism, before the universe stopped believing in itself.  After he had read the prophecy for himself a few times, he had begun to suspect that it was not a prediction so much as a plan. Not “Bad Things _will_ happen and someone _will_ stop them”, but “ _if_ Bad Things happen, someone _is going to have to_ stop them”.  You got abnormally strong individual Jedi in every generation, but not all of them saved the galaxy.  So the “Chosen One” was just the individual who fulfilled the criteria of (a) having an abnormally strong Force connection, (b) being born into a time and place that contained Bad Things for them to stop, and (c) being the one to stop them.  And really, if you looked at it that way, that first one was almost irrelevant. 

The laser walls came down.  Obi-Wan and the Sith converged on him. 

Qui-Gon split the difference and stepped back. 


End file.
